According to Axion Polymers, Brexit offers fresh opportunities for the UK and its manufacturers to secure their raw material supplies, such as recycled plastics, from a stable domestic market and stimulate a circular flow of materials.
The North West-based plastics recycler suggests that potential difficulties in transporting material across borders after 29th March 2019 should become a driver for growth in the domestic market as purchasers seek to reduce inward material supply chain risk.
Provided there is strong Government leadership, Axion Director Roger Morton asserts that freedom from regulatory controls and external policies, coupled with the ability to set our own rules, could encourage greater investment and enable the UK to ‘get ahead of the rest of Europe’ in material recovery and resource security.
Axion Polymers
Mark Keenan, Axion Polymers Business Development Manager, said: “With 31.5 million cars currently on UK roads, our future end-of-life vehicle feedstock for our recycled polymers is assured. And that can only be good news for UK companies seeking to use locally-sourced plastic raw materials that can go back into a range of products, from new cars and electrical equipment to construction products.”
While material quality controls, such as REACH regulations and other standards, should remain ‘mirrored with Europe’, Roger suggests there could be an opportunity to ‘take the lead by designing and implementing a set of regulatory measures that drive the transition to a circular economy here’.
One of the long-term benefits of Brexit should be that we can stop mass exports of waste plastic packaging and WEEE, and start investing in recycling infrastructure in the UK as an ‘environmental goal’, he says.
Roger suggests that there is an opportunity for the UK Government to drive the development of recycling demonstration and pilot ‘pathfinder’ plants once we are free of ’state aid’ regulations that prevent preferential treatment by governments.
He adds: “UK businesses need to wake up to these future possibilities and start talking to suppliers like us that can offer a secure supply of material. It’s competitive on price, performs to the same standard as virgin material and it’s low carbon.”